Don't be fooled as so many have before - that band called
"Embrace" that have an album called The Good Will Out are imposters to the
throne. The REAL Embrace was an old DC band featuring Ian MacKaye post-Minor Threat
and pre-Fugazi, along with three guys that Ian completely STOLE from The Faith, a band
led by his poor defenseless brother Alec. After completely STEALING them, destroying
Alec's f(F)aith and forcing him to create a truly mediocre band called Ignition, Ian and
his
Embrace created one of the first and greatest albums in the subgenre of punk called
"Elmo." College students spend lots of time arguing over the true definition of "Elmo,"
but
basically it's any type of music based on Elmo and Patsy's "Grandma Got Run Over By A
Reindeer."

Additionally, Ian sings very emotionally on this album, foregoing the social
attacks of Minor Threat and poetic what-the-hells of Fugazi to cry and rail for peace,
love
and understanding. And what's so funny about Pee-Sloppy Underpanties? Ho-oh! Point
bean that unlike Guy Pississippi's Rites of Spring, Embrace had a very tight,
studio-clear
sound similar to that of Minor Threat's Out Of Step but with only one guitar. As
I
said, Ian uses an extremely emotional vocal approach this time out - he sounds
GENUINELY torn to pieces about his friend calling him up to talk about money, and about
how he's just looking for a way to live with "No More Pain." And the musicians sound
fantastic. Bassist Chris Bald is MUCH more active than your normal punk bass player,
refusing to tow the company line of just playing the same chords that the guitarist is
playing, thus giving a real "yes, we know what we're doing, damn you to pieces!" feel to
the album. And guitarist Michael Hampton is enjoying arpeggios like only a young post-
hardcore slasher can. Oh! That's another point. This isn't high-speed hardcore. It's
uptempo but - again - only like that second Minor Threat "album." Maybe even slower
than that. Midtempo punk perhaps?

You know what? There's no way that this album
would have gotten a 10 on the important Mark Prindle Scale of Objective Quality if any
other singer had been on it. Ian takes a collection of good-to-great (not to mention
surprisingly diverse and dynamic) 2-minute songs and makes them SOAR into the heavens
of arm-stretching Godliness. I realize I'm jumping all around from music to vocals back
to
music and vocals and then to vocals, but here are some lyrics, so you can see what "emo"
meant back in the D.ayC.are center.

Track one: "Trying to pull out my feelings but
they're deep beneath the day/Time, Time, Time, Time, Time, has hidden them away" (now
that I see it written down, all those repetitions of the word "Time" look an awful lot
like a
guy trying to cover up his failure to think of a third line) Song B: "I thought my
eyes
would be dry but now I see/ and know the moment has a bitter taste"Third song's the
charm!: THE AMAZING "Building" I LOVE THIS FUCKIN SONG!!!!: "I can't express the way
I feel/Without fucking up something else"Fourth time around: "I failed you as a
person who should've cared/I shut my mouth because I was scared" (this song - "Past" -
appears to be about Ian losing a friend to drug abuse or suicide)Next song: "This
driving force that makes me speak and care and care/and try to change rearrange make
sense of this mess/Sometimes I laugh - sometimes I couldn't care less"Next: "If I
can do some good, I want to do it/If I have a choice, I want to make it"

See? Do you
understand what EMO is now? It's emotional stuff! And Ian KICKED ASS at it on this
album. Here! Here's some more!

""No more suicide - it kills everyone/No more petty
love/No more petty hate/No more pettiness/NO MORE PAIN!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Aw man I'm all
excited (damp penis) now. I LOVE THIS ALBUM SO MUCH!!!!!!!!

If you like Emotions
and I don't mean The Pretty Things album ha ha! Ha haha! HAHHAAAHA!!! HA!!! Heeee!
HA!!!! Ha! Heeeheeeheeheeheeheeheeheeeheeheeehe then you MUST, repeat MUST,
repeat MUST INCREASE YOUR BUST and buy the album The Good Will Hunting
by Matt Damon.

Is there some reason that this Bud E. Luv album Diary Of A
Loungeman, a collection of wacky lounge versions of Ozzy Osbourne songs, is about
as unfunny as you'd think it would be? Get this! He's doing "Sweet Leaf" now and he
keeps making hilarious COUGHING noises throughout the whole song, which is played as a
polka!!!!!!!

And don't get me started about the way he spends the last FULL MINUTE of
"Mr. Crowley" complaining that he doesn't know what "polemically" means.

Okay, I'm
actually enjoying the shitty album. (*shoots self in head*)

Before you start bitching
and moaning that there's no way I could have TYPED "shoots self in head" if I actually
HAD shot myself in the head, let me point out that these words right here are being typed
by little chunks of brain and skull falling onto the keyboard, hitting keys completely at
random.

Which you have to admit is still an improvement over my usual practice of
writing reviews by randomly spraying shit and urine all over the keyboard!

Reader Comments

dpawlowski@DEPAUW.EDUEmbrace gets a ten? I can't really argue. The guitar sound is one of a kind,
and Ian really lets loose on these tracks. "Money" sounds like a dischord
anthem, "no more pain" and "building" are truly fuckin' gut wrenching. This is
one of the few moments in Ian's career where you can see him questioning
himself, proving that he is vunerable like any one else. This record, along
with Rites of Spring and the first Dag Nasty album from the best of Dischord's
"Revolution Summer" in '85. Speaking of which, when are we gonna see a review
for the best thing Dave Smalley and Brian Baker did (ever), the excellent "Can
I Say" ? The new remastered disc sounds 1000x better than the old twofer w/
"Wig Out". Anyway, Embrace = 10/10

to000010@students.ist.edu.gr (Vasilios Karamouslis)
This is one of the first and best emocore albums ever released. Ian has
never sung like this again. He was so emotional in this album and the rest
of the band is amazing. The music is melodic and atmospheric. The lyrics
are perfect: simple and understandable. One thing that I miss listening to
FUGAZI is those great, simple lyrics that EMBRACE had and all the early 80
's hardcore bands had. I love this record more than FUGAZI albums. The
only complaint that I have is the production. The vocals sound too strong
and the amazing guitar, bass and the drums are buried. The production could
have been better. It 's an excellent record that anyone who likes FUGAZI
SHOULD OWN. 10/10.

cakeclock@hotmail.com
Great album, great songs, you can really see how they transitioned from
Minor Threat to Fugazi with this record. Money is really great on this
album, it's a great cover of Pink Floyd.

Ian MacKaye is really at his top here. I like this better then Fugazi
and Minor threat (and the Teen Idles). I wish they would've continued and
made more albums, or anything. This blows away any of the neo-emo shoe
gazing crap we have now a-days. Embrace is not emocore, punk, hardcore they
make themselves their own genre with this album. It's just really amazing.

MICHAEL.HOUSTON@welfare.ie
A 10 for Embrace?! X marks the spot where Prindle's heart is
over his head. Tracks 6-10 ("Do Not Consider Yourself Free" to
"Can't Forgive")
is the worst sequence of songs that Ian Muck Eye ever put his
name on.

"Dance Of Days", "Building" and "Money" are the best tracks on
this album in my opinion.

chrisjsutton@gmail.com
"This is one of the first and best emocore albums ever released. Ian has never sung like this again. He was so emotional in this album and the rest of the band is amazing."

Oh lord, Vasilios Karamouslis shut the f**k up.

RussNdc@aol.com
Alec was to be the original lead singer for Fugazi. He left what was then a project to form Ignition. Calling Ignition mediocre is crazy. They were great and better than Embrace. Colin Seers also left the fugazi project to play drums for Dag Nasty. That left Ian and Joe Lally waiting for the project to become a band. That's were the song "Waiting Room" came from. Ian and Alec were always tight. Embrace was a good band, hardly the level of minor threat or fugazi. But there would not have been a Fugazi if there wasn't an Embrace. Growing up in the DC area I know alot of people that say Ignition would have been bigger than Fugazi, if they could stay together.